I went to install a 2-1 Red and noticed that it appears my current switches are ungrounded. I don’t think it’s wise for me to proceed. Do others agree? I’m attaching some pictures. I was planning to put it on the single pole on the left. I see some copper wire coming out of the bundle, but I’m afraid to just blindly tug on it.
The one on the right looks like it has two ground wires coiled together, but they aren’t even attached to the switch. A TON of switches in my house are ungrounded like this.
The ground wires are there but the clown that installing that didn’t connect them properly.
You need to carefully cut back the insulation on the left wire and expose enough ground wire you can work with it. You then need to connect all 3 ground wires together along with a pigtail to go to each switch.
One thing, is each switch on a separate circuit? That’d be the only valid reason for not connecting the grounds together in the box, but it’s still a fail for not grounding the switches. If this is the case, then you can just extend the left wire ground to the new switch. You still also have to extend the grounds from the right wires that switch to fix it properly. If you do this, you need to confirm the left wire ground is actually being grounded at the other end of that wire.
They are on the same circuit. I figured I could try pulling at the ground on the left to see if I could expose enough, but I’m hesitant to do it myself. I’ll probably end up getting an electrician out here.
That ground is (stupidly) cut that short by whatever hack wired up that box (no real electrician would do something that dumb) – pulling on just that ground won’t help.
But try gently pulling on that whole romex – there may be a bit of helpful slack (and hopefully enough that gives a bit more room to trim insulation back), but there’s an equally good chance there’s no slack available. Worth a shot though.
I also just called an electrician who said that just because there is a wire there doesn’t mean that it’s actually grounded on the other end. I feel like that’s worth checking out as well before I start pulling/cutting at Romex
I just got a multimeter and ran a few tests. The ground wires on the right are reading 0 ohms when tested against the black and white wires on the right, as well as against the white wire on the left.
The ground wire on the right is reading OL against all other wires.
You then need to connect all 3 ground wires together along with a pigtail to go to each switch.
Do I proceed with this? It’s been a long time since my college course in circuits.
Extend the ground in the left. Tie the two right together. Use a waygo inline coupler someone posted a link to HD above. Then with a pigtail off your new three ground wires, run the pigtail to your switches.
Don’t just connect the left ground to the switch and walk away. That looks like a light run, so likely ground is not connected to anything on that left other then a light fixture which makes that light ungrounded. Ohms from black to ground should be zero. Test by measuring volts from black (hot) to ground, and if you get full voltage, then that ground is grounded proper at your panel and tieing them all together will ground your switch and fixtures. If you get zero volts reading, then the ground is not connected to the panel. Which likely if you test the left ground to the hot wire, you will likely get zero volts. Be careful as you will have power on while testing
You have ground wires, but just for the record, ground wires generally weren’t installed at all in homes built before the 1960s, and it’s fine to replace dumb switches with smart switches in those homes. The bigger issue with switch boxes is the lack of neutral wires, which weren’t required by code until quite recently.
I ran into this scenario for the first time last month! I hadn’t seen that before (no ground connected to light switch), and definitely was surprised (home was built in late 1990s). Got myself some green wire to connect from the twisted ground in the box to the switch using a Wago.
